Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Excuse Me, Waiter, Their Food is Better Than Mine.

While that stupid client is downloading, I figured I might as well do something to kill the time.

So there's been some controversy about the recent "outing" of the Veninfang solo runs.

If you haven't been following the EE forums, here's the gist. One class (Bard), can basically run circles in that dungeon with a huge mob train following, while the bard just DoT's the mobs dead for massive amounts of exp.

No, that wasn't the controversy.

The controversy was the employment of a "glitch" in the game by people who did it, by hitting move right as a spell finishes, all ending lag is canceled.

Funnily, in any self-respecting fighting game community, the discovery of something like this would immediately be hailed as revolutionary in gameplay.

Not in MMO's, apparently. Apparently, this is unfair.

Apparently, if someone else can do something, even if it was as simple as simply hitting a button at the right timing, is too much for some people to comprehend, and they'd complain as though the game wronged them. As though the existence of something that differentiates people of differing skill levels is fundamentally discriminating.

In their defense, it is picky. If you happen to be "motor-skills impaired" as the current politically correct bullshit says, you clearly deserve extra attention and service, and the way to do that is by restricting everyone else so they have to play on the same "motor-skills impaired" level. How dare other people play better than you! How dare they have better equipment! How dare they leave you behind! Even though there's nothing positive that can be said of you, you still deserve to be on top along with everyone else!

And the sad part? Some people agree with them.

This is, quite frankly, retarded.

Oh I'm sorry, I meant "brain-skills impaired"

Their points, so far, are as thus.

1. You don't want to alienate the playerbase who can't do it.

The sad part is, even if it was seriously a difficult thing to pull off that offered advantages to a tiny select group of players, it still doesn't make sense to remove it.

Why? Said group of players will be the game's most genuinely dedicated players. Those are the people who'd go to great lengths to make their chars a little better, to get that extra edge in PvP, to achieve the particularly difficult challenges the game might offer.

In other words, these people will buy the biggest volume of AP.

The people who can't do it and complain about it are the group that's least likely to spend AP.

Why? What they're essentially demanding is a handout. They want other players' capabilities removed so they could compete without spending any effort. If they wouldn't even expend any effort on the game, what makes you think they'll buy AP? They're going to be the same people who demand CS items in events, and free AP. Pleasing them is counterproductive to making money.

2. If you send out the message "Tricks are potentially bannable." You're going to discourage people from trying to play the game, which will decrease revenue.

In a game such as EE, testing generates revenue. People who do their builds, people who try to solo things, etc. will often have to pay out of their own pockets for the success of testing. For example, every time somebody tests a build, that's a potential 499 AP into Aeria's pocket for a reset KP. People who make gear and whatnot will often expend a ton of AP for it, even if they end up not using it. The potential to better their characters compels them to take the risk.

If you make it bannable, not only will they stop testing (what's the point? you find something, they ban it), they'll also be less encouraged to play, because they're essentially in a minefield.

3. You also send out the message "we don't actually have a game here, just give us money."

If you disallow tactics that require skill. As skill-deprived as the MMO genre already is, we're still all pretending that there's a game under all that AP wrap. However, by placing emphasis on the non-allowing of skill-based tricks, you are telling your players that you're not interested in running a game here, and nobody enjoys competing in spending money.

4. You will also decrease the chances of actual problems being caught in the future as well as actually exacerbating the skill gap.

Right now, people are willing to communicate about things like this, because they've found a shiny new trick that makes them look awesome. However, if this becomes bannable, then who's gonna share it with the community again? You will not create a fair game for anyone. In fact, without people sharing what they find, you will have all the knowledge of said tricks being limited to a few testers and their circle of friends. In other words, instead of sharing it with the community so everybody could potentially benefit, now only they benefit. Unless you specifically watch them (which, you don't have the manpower to). You in fact will never be able find out about other "glitches" that may arise.

A similar thing happens on the TW server. They never talk about anything of this sort, because they know that as soon as they talk, it'll get removed. The end result is, those who know will still know and have an advantage, and those that don't never will.

And the sad part is. Despite all this, they're probably gonna make it bannable.